FF12: Partners
by shannyfish
Summary: Felicity and Oliver decides to do something normal together. For SmoaknArrow's Olicity Flash Fiction Prompt #12: Whatever It Takes.


"_A strong friendship doesn't need daily conversation, doesn't always need togetherness, as long as the relationship lives in the heart, true friends will never part..."_

_~ Anonymous_

. . .

It was lonely in the Foundry all by herself. Diggle was home with a pregnant Lyla…which was good. She was happy for them, she really was. Felicity was just really used to having Diggle around ALL of the time. Tonight Roy wasn't even there, but she'd noticed that even when Roy was around…Oliver tended to take him out and she didn't get to talk to either of them much at all. It wasn't just about being left alone all of the time…it was that Oliver seemed quiet and distant.

When they'd returned to Starling City after seeing the prison that ARGUS had constructed for Slade Wilson, Oliver had seemed okay. Well, okay considering everything that had happened. Oliver had been through a lot leading up to Slade being contained, but Felicity still felt like he was in a pretty good place considering all of that. His mother had been killed, their city had almost been destroyed, and his sister was gone… She still swore that for some reason, Oliver was avoiding her.

"You can go ahead and head home, Felicity," Oliver said over the comms.

Felicity frowned. This was a regular thing and normally she'd just do it. "It's okay, I can wait up for you…"

"It's not necessary."

"But I want—"

"It's late."

Felicity frowned deeply and just turned off the comms. She set the earpiece onto the desk and just leaned back into her chair. She was so irritated with him, but she needed to talk about this tonight. She didn't want to wait until she felt like blowing up on him, though his words felt like he was pushing her away even more now and she was getting really close to the blowing up point.

It was obvious that he realized that she was still there when he walked down the steps. He was slow and his steps sounded heavy, almost like he was dragging his feet and taking as long as possible to reach the bottom of the stairs. "I told you to go ahead and go home," Oliver said as his feet hit the bottom step. He looked over and she just stared at him, her head resting against her wrist.

"Why are you pushing me away?" she flat out asked him. Felicity didn't like being subtle or beating around the bush, especially when it came to Oliver. She liked the truth and she liked telling Oliver exactly what she felt. She straightened up in her chair and turned in it, so that she was fully facing him.

"What are you talking about?"

Felicity sucked in breath and then got to her feet. Did he really NOT see it? Was he not doing it on purpose? Or was he just…well, she didn't know. Oliver was complicated, but then he was simple too. He was a complex person and she knew that sometimes he tried to protect her and forgot that she had a choice in her own life. IF that was what he was doing, then she wanted him to stop. She didn't want to be protected from the world.

"We've been back for two months now and I can count on ONE hand how many conversations you and I have had," she told him as she held up her hand in order to emphasize her point. "And I mean REAL conversations… Not telling me to go home over the comms."

"Felicity, I—" Oliver stopped and seemed to be thinking about what he was going to say. She actually preferred that. It meant that he was really concerned about what his response was. They were close, or at least she felt like they were, so the face he made worried her. He looked like he was fighting with himself, trying to know what to say in response. "Felicity, I just have been thinking a lot about Slade…"

"What about Slade?" she asked in concern. Slade Wilson was locked up in an ARGUS super-max prison on Lian Yu. He wasn't supercharged with the Mirakuru anymore, which she knew didn't not make him dangerous…but he wasn't AS dangerous as he had been before.

"At first it was just dreams…nightmares…" he told her honestly and quietly. "And now I just can't find myself sleeping much…and every time I THINK about you or LOOK at you… I think of what COULD have happened… It would have been MY fault, Felicity… I put you in the line of fire with Slade and I practically handed you over to him…"

Felicity wasn't surprised by this, but at the same time she hadn't expected THAT to be the problem. "It was MY choice, too," Felicity told him. She left her chair and moved towards him. "And in case you forgot, I'm okay…"

"I haven't forgotten," Oliver told her. He got extremely serious. "But that doesn't mean that I'm okay with the idea of putting you in harm's way and for something to happen to you."

"Oliver, sometimes I worry about losing you…not just YOU in the physical sense, but in the sense of that we'll lose the friendship that we've developed…" Felicity informed him quietly.

"Felicity, you're not going to lose me."

And she believed him.

That didn't make what had felt like him distancing himself from her any easier. She closed the distance between them and hugged him as tightly as she could. "And you have to come to terms with the fact that I might get hurt…"

"I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen."

She smiled as she held onto him. "You know what we need?" Felicity asked as they finally separated and she beamed up at him. "Something to take our minds off of all the stress."

Stress had been in high supply since Slade and now in the aftermath of it all…it really hadn't let up any. They were still waiting to find out the fate of Queen Consolidated and the Queen Family fortune. Since Isabel had been behind everything with Slade and that had gone public, they had hoped that maybe some of her actions wouldn't be held up by the board. They had been playing the waiting game on that for far longer than Felicity liked.

"Tomorrow, we'll do something…during the day," he told her. "Something that has nothing to do with being at the Foundry."

"Something fun," she added.

He smiled and gave her a nod. "Something fun."

. . .

The dim lighting amused Felicity and she was certain that Oliver hadn't thought about it when they'd decided on their activity for the day. It was still going to be fun though. There weren't a lot of people and that was just perfect. There was music playing, but it was on just high enough that you knew what song was playing.

"I can get the snacks if you want?" Felicity volunteered. "Preferences?"

"Nachos."

"Nachos, it is!"

Felicity went and ordered two orders of nachos and an extremely large drink. She'd gone to order two, but they seemed to only one the bucket-sized drinks and so she figured that she and Oliver could share. If he really needed his own drink, then he could go back and get his own bucket-sized beverage.

She found him already at one of the lanes as he switched into bowling shoes. "They were out of normal sized cups," Felicity explained as she set the items on the table at the end of their lane that was designated for food and drink. "Hopefully you don't mind sharing?"

"I don't mind at all," Oliver told her with a bright smile.

"You realize that this might be the most NORMAL thing that we've done since I've met you, right?" Felicity asked. He seemed to only smile more at her comment. She sat down and started to work on switching out her shoes. "I'm terrible at bowling, I'm warning you now… My ball is going to live in the gutter…"

"I actually have never bowled in an actual bowling alley before," Oliver said. "Tommy and I used to use beer bottles…and…I don't know what else," he admitted. "Probably something we had on hand at the time… I think we used a globe once…"

Felicity was not surprised and shook her head as she tied her bowling shoes. "I'm sure you and Tommy had all games involving alcohol real or invented completely down pat."

"At the time, I always thought that it made it more interesting."

"Sometimes it still does," she told him as she got to her feet and then turned to look towards where the bowling balls were stored. She moved past Oliver and went to pick out her ball. She was certain that Oliver could lift the heaviest one, but she wasn't going to try to show off…after all, the weight of the ball wasn't going to help her keep the ball in the lane. Felicity looked over her shoulder and caught Oliver staring, "You already picked out your ball, right?"

"I just grabbed one."

"They're by weight."

"I got a sixteen."

"That's probably the biggest one they have."

Oliver shrugged.

Felicity turned her attention back to the rack and then finally picked out the ball that she decided that she'd use and put it in place next to Oliver's ball. She took a seat at the computer console and started to type in their names in order to start up the game. Once it was started up, she looked towards Oliver as she'd entered his name first and wondered if she'd need to explain things to him or if he understood the basics from TV and movies and his antics of beer bowling with Tommy.

He only seemed to wait a moment before moving past her and heading towards where his ball was waiting for him. Oliver moved towards the lane and seemed to bowl with ease. His ball stayed fairly center and he took out about half of the pins. She was sure that this was due to something that he learned while trying to survive on Lian Yu and wherever he'd been during those five years.

"Show off," she teased lightly as she moved to get her ball, her hand lingering along his arm for a moment. As she'd thought, her ball ended up in the gutter nearly immediately.

They were about halfway through their game of Oliver completely beating her when the lights turned dimmer almost to the point of being off and then a disco ball dropped a few lanes over, colored lights painted a light show, and the music changed to something that sounded like it was from 'Kids' Bop' came on. They both just laughed and looked down to see that there was a kids' party a few lanes down and they were all happily bowling, dancing, and singing along to the song.

"Those kids are cheating," Oliver complained.

"Those are called bumpers… I can bowl a lot better with those," Felicity told him. "It's like an art form."

Oliver smiled at her and then suddenly, he was pulling her into his arms and they were dancing. It was completely random and it had taken her by surprise, but Felicity wasn't going to complain. They laughed and bowling was forgotten for a moment.

"We should do this more often," Oliver spoke up during their dance.

"Dancing in a bowling alley?"

"Doing normal things," he clarified as he pretended to brush hair out of her face. Her hair was pulled neatly back into a ponytail, so there were no loose strands for him to push back into place. "Together."

Felicity really wasn't going to complain about that idea. She loved these moments. It didn't have to be bowling, but it was just nice to have these private moments even if they were in public. At that moment, it felt like just the two of them. His hand came up and brushed along her cheek for a moment as they danced and for a moment, she thought that their lips were going to meet…

Laughter and children shouting, "They're going to kiss!" seemed to break the mood that had been building.

"We should finish our game," Felicity said as she ducked her head down. Blush rose in her cheeks and even though it was dark, she didn't want Oliver to see.

Oliver kissed her forehead. "Next time, we bowl some place without kids."

"Deal," Felicity agreed as she raised her head to look at him.

. . .

The End.


End file.
